Okay, don’t judge me, I’m only human. It took me 2 years
before I started playing The Elder
Scrolls V: Skyrim. I already bought the game twice in 2013. I first bought
the game for 5 dollars at a pawn shop out of curiosity but then I’d rather play
Red Dead Redemption. I then sold it for 9 dollars at an EB Games
store for a copy of Yakuza 4 – which
I haven’t played yet as well, oh my god, what is wrong with you, Ralphy?
After several months, that particular pawn shop had
another copy of Skyrim at the same price of 5 dollars. I bought it but then I
got distracted by playing Grand Theft
Auto V, a wonderfully massive game in its own right. After a year of playing
GTA V, I’ve kept making excuse after
excuse to not play Skyrim. Assassin’s Creed: Ezio Trilogy, which is
one of my favorite PS3 compilations ever, took a lot of my time until I got to
the mediocre Revelations part. After
AssCreed, I played Deadpool, Bioshock Infinite, Minecraft, and a lot of others that I can’t mention at the top of
my head. Basically, I put Skyrim at
my game shelf as it collected dust in two years.
However, in a spur of the moment decision, I decided to
try it out. I mean, I wasn’t unaware of its popularity, let alone its existence.
One of my best friends, Karen, played a lot of Skyrim on her PC back in college
and showed the title menu of the game before a class presentation. I’ve read
about the “arrow to the knee” jokes that got old after the first time it was
said. Although I’ve never actually seen any gameplay footage before actually
playing the game, I’ve seen the wallpapers and screenshots to get an idea of
how the game actually is. It looked like something that I’d never get around to
playing actively, like Kingdom Hearts.
As late as I can be, I love Skyrim. In a
month, I’ve played over 62 hours of
the game without caring much about the story. That’s 61 more hours than I’ve ever
spent talking to my friends. Who needs friends when you can shout people off a
high cliff to their death by a single crunch? It’s not like you can actually
shout someone off a cliff in real life without a gun or a sword pointed at
their throats. That’s for normal people! You’re the Dragonborn in Skyrim! You
can do anything you want to do! Who’s gonna stop you? The guards? Fucking sword
bait is what they are!
At first, I thought the game would turn me off instantly
like it did with Oblivion, the
previous game before this. In Oblivion,
you start off in a prison and you bust your way out of it. For some reason,
that turned me off from the game and I spent only an hour playing it. In Skyrim, you’re about to be executed.
Before you realize you wasted your money on a really short game, a dragon attacks and instantly gives you an
adrenaline rush. You can either run or rot, motherfucker, and this dragon is
here to make sure you rot in ashes. That kept me interested because I’m shallow
like that. With a huge dragon to search and eventually eviscerate, I wanted to
play more of the game.
Really, Skyrim is a huge place and it sort of reminds me
of Just Cause 2’s map. In Skyrim,
there are various environments such as mountains, snowy mountains, woods,
caves, and plains that make you feel like Skyrim is more than a typical video
game map. Personally, I love fighting bandits in the middle of a rainstorm as
it feels like I’m the hero in a great action movie and the weather just makes
it even better.
I’m more of a two-handed axe guy myself. Sure it’s slower
and I can’t block that much but it’s what I use when I want to HURT someone.
Your stupid magic is no match with an axe to the face, apprentice mage who got
in my way. Whenever bandits think they can take me on, I smack their skulls
with my ax just so I can say I’ll be always on their mind. Whenever I hear a
dragon fly by to cause mayhem, I instantly think “Oh god, oh god! Not now, not
now!” followed by sighing and saying “Time to go to work.” I love wielding the
battle axe in a fight because it just reeks of badass.
After over 62 hours of playing the game after work and on
days off, I’ve grown to love Skyrim and I think it’s a wonderfully fun game.
The question I’m asking myself is “Why the hell did it take you so long to play
this awesome game, Ralphy?!” I’m metaphorically kicking myself for not doing so
earlier because I wouldn’t be years late in talking about it. At least now I
get the point of the “Fus Ro Dah” shout.
